soma.fm - groove salad station = awesome

now it was my turn to sulk. after wrapping myself up in my roommates life for the better part of a month the bottom fell out and i swung into a low. it's nothing to be alarmed about. for, well, forever and ever it's been like that. i don't know what it's like to not be depressed. i never get the spectacular highs of manic bounces. and it's beyond me to fathom what non-depressed really is.
i find it difficult to bolster people who complain that they're sad. i know the socially acceptable response is to pat someone on the back, but my real response is puzzlement. what do you mean you're tired of being depressed? isn't that the status quo? doesn't everyone feel like a perpetual Eeoyre dragging around huffing at the state of the world?
no no, i KNOW it's nothing normal, but it's what i see from my side of the street. i wouldn't imagine we'd make it as a species if we all floated around in an existential bubble secured in absurdity. how is this [gesturing to everything and anything] real? how is this all happening beyond what someone has quantified and i've agreed to believe about it?
when i found a copy of "the outsider" way back in grade nine i hid with it in the furthest nook of the library. i was legitimately concerned that someone would catch me reading it and draw attention to the fact that i was just faking it. that i was somehow trying to navigate through school and social interactions but it was all too absurd... possibly calling attention to my disconnect and thereby causing some sort of raucous leading to a witch hunt. i should add that i was always paranoid along with this palliate of neurotic perceptions. which came first?
no, i think the sadness came first. i can't recall being happy as a child, or as a teenager or as a saggy-ass fag on the wrong side of 30.
he can talk. he can laugh. he can fake it. but every day i wake up and feel a wash of surprise. "i'm alive still? another day to waft through as a wide-eyed yet markedly indifferent observer?" my shock is from how overwhelming it is to observe people moving about in Reality. my indifference is from a resolute belief that i'll never really get it. i'll never really jump in to the herd and not look out of place.
all that puked out and wiped away, i did have marked periods where i went from gloomy and depressed to what i like to call Super Fucking Gloomy and Depressed. why dress it up with anything beyond that. it was the same old just sharper, deeper and more pronounced.
in these insular periods i demanded little interaction with others and a firm path from the end of a work day to my bedroom door shutting behind me. people in the office would pace around my desk trying to get my attention without directly cutting into my ritual of ignoring them. there really wasn't any pattern to follow, just stay the fuck out of my hair and don't ask me to go out for lunch. aside from my boss and long term friend, i couldn't work up the energy to look like i gave a shit. not like i normally would. i pushed off client visits to make sure my sullen gazes and still moments of drinking wine silently didn't cut into my comission.
so far i had made it through a week of avoiding any bullshit other than people gossiping about my lack of interest in their personal lives. something i normally sucked up ravenously to piece together absurd galleries of lives that i was in awe over. wowed more by the complexity of stupid thinking that people embarked on more than actually coveting what they had.
Pasha gave me a ride home after work and let there be silence save for the sips of air and inhaling on a joint. he drove through the tight braids of rush hour cars quietly and only changed mood flipping through songs to listen to.
he managed to cut off two cabs and neatly pull in to a spot outside of my building. nothing was said as he reached into the back seat and pulled out a to-go container to hand it over before i hopped out. he pushed up his $400 sun glasses to hover precariously over his eyebrows and yanked my head into his lips and smooch my cheek. deftly executed knowing my hands were too full to slap him away.
"listen, don't sweat the little shit and cheer the fuck up before Mon Petite Chou comes in next week. on point and on-fucking-top of it. right right?"
"right right."
"cheer up, it only gets worse, Nathan."
"that is true, Pasha. now unlock the door before i get my rape whistle out."
chud thunk and i was jack in the box out the door. didn't even stop for the mail box which always called a siren song of obsessive checking and re-checking.
up to the elevator and completely ignore the hot older daddy with the great dane i'm always sucking up to. he gets off on his floor with a knitted brow and Percy shooting me some longing and hurt at my lack of usually slavering attention.
up up to my final stop and stride down the hall like john fucking wayne on a mission. one fag, one dream, one bed and a season worth of Battlestar Galactica to fold myself up into. definitely without pants on.
brad was tidying up in the kitchen when i walked in and i gave him a rock solid finger gun as i pulled a clean fork out of the drying rack.
"hey they're playing "Rope" at the Windsor Theatre tonight, you've been bugging me to see if for ages so i thought we'd go check it out?"
"nah, not tonight. you go check it out tho, it's worth it."
"are you ok? it's been like living with a ghost for a week now."
"just not in the mood to interact that's all. it happens."
"What's for dinner?"
"Pasha picked it up for me. it's probably vegetarian and bullshit."
"why don't you check it out?"
i didn't bother to check my volume as i exhaled and pulled the container out of the bag. this was totally cutting into my Rejecting Existence agenda for the evening.
dinner was a splendid cobb salad worthy of praise and heavy on the meat. i smiled down at it and spotted the frying pan on the stove heating up an omelet with a lone orange beside it for variation.
"anyway, been a slice. gonna head to my room."
"Wh... what are you doing? just hanging out by yourself all night?"
[thoughtful pause with light lip chew] "yahp, yahp that exactly what i was going to do."
"can i sit in your room at least?"
"no actually. i'm not going to be wearing pants, i'm going to be in bed wearing my Spock shirt from grade 10 and my Batman y-fronts that make my balls look misshapen. i might be lightly masturbating under the covers and will probably wind up smoking weed and do some editing on the new trailer i'm putting together after a long nap. and as mentioned, while i'm doing that i won't have pants on and will probably be absent mindedly masturbating while doing it."
he stiffened up a little and turned back to his eggs. "i... i don't actually care."
"i think you will care when my balls slip out the side of the underwear and i start playing with them."
"you know, we've hung out many times before and you didn't instinctively whack off while i was there."
"yeah i'm aware."
he looked dumbfounded and shocked at my attitude. why why why did i have to fake it ALL the time? i'll fake it SOME of the time but not every waking minute. it's too draining.
"ok forget it. you obviously don't want to be bothered."
"yes most definitely i don't. night."
miffy little inhales of air behind me as i walk down the all and the final schuck of a sob. normal me would have dropped everything to run back to Brad and be Fat Freud but i had my heart set on that cobb salad.
shovelling a hearty forkful into my mouth i used my left hand to clack out a slow text message to Brad. "give me til 9:30 k?"
"k"
good enough. i just bought myself 4 hours to muck about and here's hoping by that time he'll be all cried out and will just want to get stoned and nap at the end of my bed arms around my over sized pingu doll.